Fallen
by Colon
Summary: In the middle of the night, Harry Potter falls down the proverbial rabbit hole, and lands in the proverbial midden heap. Stuck in a world completely different from home, he gets drawn into a war even worse than the one he left behind. Lotr cross. Post HBP
1. The Fall

I: The Fall

"Oomph!"

The air was forced from his lungs as his body landed suddenly on hard stone. He lay still, his face contorting in pain. He drew in a rattling breath, and let it out in a groan. He was in agony. His back and shoulders ached horribly, and his head had been dashed against the stone. His head throbbed with fire, and he felt warm blood trickling down his scalp to pool on the floor.

It was a few moments before he could bring himself to open his eyes. When he finally did, he almost thought he'd gone blind from concussion. He was staring into a black void. He skin crawled. The darkness seemed to suck at his eyeballs and wriggle its way into his pores. Harry felt himself begin to panic, but took deep breaths as Hermione had taught him. It calmed him down somewhat, but this place… Even in the dead of night, a million miles from a town or city, there were stars, or the moon. Even in the deepest dungeon there was a crack under a doorway, or faint reflections cast on a wall, but not here. There was _no_ light here.

It couldn't be natural, he decided, more likely it was a spell to make him blind. He couldn't hear anything either, except his own still shaky breathing. Slowly, wincing in pain, he brought his hand in front of his face. Or, at least he thought he did. There was no way of knowing, apart from the blast of pain from his shoulder. At least he knew he wasn't dead, it hurt too much. He shivered, partly in pain, but mostly from the bone-biting cold of the stone below him, stealing the warmth from his body.

Oh, joy, he thought, as the shivers wracked through him. He'd been captured. Again. He stared around him into the darkness. Sensory deprivation was a form of torture, wasn't it? It would be a new one for Voldemort, though; in Harry's experience he'd always been a more "wands on" type. In years gone by, he wouldn't have put it past Lucius to think of something like this, so restrained and effortless yet mentally devastating; but Azkaban had stripped Malfoy of more than just his good looks. These days, he resembled more one of his trembling, cowering house-elves than their Death Eater master.

Now, Harry thought, trying to take stock of the situation, who _was_ powerful enough to do this? Voldemort, certainly, but this didn't feel like his style. Sitting around letting his victims go mad from lack of stimuli wasn't something he'd have the patience for. But then, it wasn't something any of his followers would come up with either. Some of the Death Eaters had torture down almost to an art form, but this technique was too deeply rooted in Muggle psychology to be appealing to them.

Anyway, if Death Eaters wanted someone to go mad, there were quicker ways. It had taken under twenty minutes for the Longbottoms to have their minds broken into little pieces. They had been unable to withstand the potency of four simultaneous Cruciatus curses from the Lestranges, who were among the most powerful wizards of their generation, and Crouch Jr., who had been no slouch either. All the Death Eaters were quite powerful. Voldemort had no interested in weaklings; after all, what was the point of being Lord of the useless? What he was doing associating himself with the likes of Pettigrew and the Malfoys was a mystery to Harry.

Not that he really needed to trouble himself about who was behind it. They'd get bored soon. Harry supposed he should thank his Uncle Vernon for ignoring his existence for all those years. If he were troubled by the dark, he would have gone mad by the time he was five, the number of times he had been shoved in his_-__the_cupboard,_the_cupboard. And at least there was no yelling.

Most people in Harry's situation would have had the urge to talk to themselves, to try to break the unnerving silence; but Harry didn't want to speak out loud. It was possible that it could draw out his unseen enemy and get the whole show on the road, but he didn't want to risk it. Anyone clever enough to do this to him would be clever enough to put anything he said to good use. Or rather, bad use. Very bad, potentially. Better to keep schtum than risk betraying what was left of the Order.

Not that the Order was much good these days. Most of the members Harry had met while he was at school were dead and gone. Remus was died and Tonks as well, killed shortly before Harry's seventeenth birthday. Tonks had had her throat slit with a cutting curse, and Remus had got in the way of Pettigrew's silver hand and just about had his face burned off. The Healer had told Harry that death was instantaneous, which was a blessing, he supposed, if a macabre one.

McGonagall had taken over as Headmistress of Hogwarts, so she was in the first line of defence when Voldemort came to take the castle. Harry had been out of the country, deep in Eastern Europe, and so had missed the battle. McGonagall had died defending the castle, as had Neville, Ginny and so many others. Many of the lower years had been sent home when word had reached the Order of the impending attack, but those deemed able to help defend the castle had been asked to stay.

Some had refused, had run in terror at the thought of facing Voldemort. Harry understood that choice, as much as he thought it cowardly and despicable. He had since come to realise that it was right to be scared of Voldemort; he really was everything in nightmares and more. But to let that fear rule you, to leave your classmates, people you had shared a dorm with for years, to leave them to face the fear that you couldn't… Harry supposed his was a very Gryffindor way of thinking. He had been accused of it ever since he had been Sorted. But surely a Hufflepuff wouldn't abandon a friend? And surely a Ravenclaw knew that survival lay in numbers? Even a pragmatic Slytherin would have seen that they would have to choose a side sooner or later, surely?

Most of the upper years had died, being the best duellists and so out in the middle of the action. Some had been given the responsibility of protecting those who couldn't fight, but they had died as well as their charges. He had been told that Cho Chang, who had been incapable of facing the Death Eaters who had killed her boyfriend, had made a valiant attempt to sneak out of the castle to call in reinforcements from the Ministry - which was oblivious to the attack, as it had been to many others before and since - but had instead come up from the Honeydukes tunnel to find herself in the middle of Voldemort's base in Hogsmeade.

Some had survived by Apparating away when they realised the situation was turning into a bloodbath. The castle wards had been toppled before the battle began, so there was nothing to stop them. Harry had met a few of them since. Most had fled to Ireland, or to America, where Voldemort was barely a footnote at the bottom of a world history textbook, but there were some who stayed. They were all traumatised by what they had seen, and wracked with guilt for running away. Many of them had proven very useful to him as eyes-and-ears, trying to make up for their cowardice; yet they were too afraid to actually make an attack on the Death Eaters themselves. Again, Harry understood, but it angered him that he was expected to face up to that same Dark Lord with that same army, all alone, and he wasn't allowed to run away or be afraid.

Kreacher died, which Harry was not at all sorry about, but not before telling Bellatrix Lestrange about the Order's Grimmauld Place headquarters, the Fidelius Charm having fallen with its caster. The magic that bound him to Harry had killed him for betraying his master. Apparently the spell made it very painful, but he had died with a smile on his face, knowing he had been loyal to the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black. The resulting raid had killed off the rest of the Weasleys in one fell swoop.

Fred, George and, oddly, Percy had gone to fight at Hogwarts, and had died there, but Mr and Mrs Weasley hadn't, neither had Bill nor Charlie nor Ron, who had come back to report in and collect some supplies. They were all killed by the Lestranges and the Malfoys, who had gained entrance due to their alliances with the old Mr Black - who had set most of the wards many years before - as was Kingsley Shacklebolt. Moody had been ambushed the day before in an alley by no less than twelve Death Eaters, and had taken down all of them in a spectacular duel that had spilled over into a Muggle road, where he was run over by a number seventeen Routemaster bus.

Hermione and Harry were still on their search for the Horcruxes at that point, they hadn't even realised that Ron was dead until he was late returning from his progress report at headquarters. When his timed Portkey had returned without him, they had become worried. They hadn't been able to communicate with the Order, and by the time they had made their way back to England, all that was left was the dubious dregs of what had been a growing resistance movement.

Rita Skeeter had shown up in the street outside headquarters and had had to do some pretty fast talking to save her life from a grief-stricken Harry. She had decided to join the Order when she realised that the strategic interviews she had been blackmailed into taking by Hermione had already damned her to death if Voldemort ever took over; she had no chance of staying away from it all as she had hoped. She had led them to a drunken Mundungus Fletcher and, the most dubious of all, an entirely sober, scowling Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy.

Predictably, wands were drawn, and not so predictably, it was Snape who was slower off the mark and ended up suspended from the ceiling by his ankles, Malfoy by his side. The resulting explanations, interspersed with enough insults and hostility to drive Hermione to confiscating wands, had taken several hours. Harry had not been able to believe it. Snape had killed Albus Dumbledore before his very eyes, and yet he had never stopped working for the Order.

The type of Vow that Snape had taken to preserve his cover had never been broken before in history, that was the reason that particular spell had been chosen. There was no loophole, no backdoor, and the spell work itself was "Longbottom-proof", as Snape had put it. He had Vowed to kill Dumbledore if Draco could not, so that was what he would be forced to do. Draco had failed, and so to preserve the only Death Eater spy the Order had - and to preserve his own miserable hide - he had killed Dumbledore. This had the effect of cementing Snape's position with Voldemort and the other Death Eaters, who had all been more than a little suspicious of his allegiances.

It had also alienated the Order, and Snape had yet to find a way to convince them of his loyalty when the news came through of the attack on Grimmauld Place. Knowing, or thinking he knew, that the Order would abandon the place as soon as they knew of Dumbledore's death and his own defection, Snape had seen fit not to send warning. Not that they would have believed him if he had tried. And for all he knew; this was yet another test of his loyalties. It had been a test, he later discovered, and since the Order had been practically wiped out by the attack, his position was more secure than ever.

Snape had been horrified by the news, and at the Order's stupidity in staying put. He had realised just how much the Order needed him around. He had gathered those he could find, gaining some eyes-and-ears but only few active allies: Skeeter and Malfoy. After Draco had had a taster of the Dark Lord's wrath, as was inevitable when it had emerged that he had failed in killing Dumbledore, he was thoroughly disillusioned as to his Lord's greatness and goodness and had jumped ship at the first opportunity.

They were left with six members to deal with three Horxcruxes to destroy, including the one in the Dark Lord's body, and an army of Dark wizards, giants, Dementors and werewolves to defeat. Not to mention without the resources provided by Hogwarts or any kind of safe house. The Ministry was doing what it could, but it was fighting a losing battle. The situation didn't look good.

That had been two years ago. Miraculously, they were all six of them still alive. The war, still being fought by a barely-there Ministry, wasn't going well at all, and now there was alarming talk coming in from the grapevine. Voldemort had decided to track down and finally put paid to the last remainders of the fly buzzing around his ears that was the much-diminished "Order of the Inflammable Pigeon," as Malfoy had once called it. With the entire strength of the Dark Lord - which had been previously concerned with getting rid of the Ministry after his victory at Hogwarts - intent on hunting them down, it was only a matter of time before they were hauled up in front of him for what could be months of torture, before being granted the release of death.

Lying on the dark, hard, stony floor of wherever the hell he was, Harry chuckled to himself bitterly.

It _really_ didn't look good


	2. In the Darkness

II: In the Darkness

Harry sat up slowly, and climbed, wincing, to his feet. His head throbbed around the cut, and with each tiny movement a burst of pain shot up his back from his legs to his shoulders. He rolled his shoulders experimentally and shook his legs out. He was covered with sweat and ached all over, but he'd had worse. He decided that it was bearable enough to be going on with and took a few staggering steps. He quickly sat down again as colourful whorls and sparkles filled his vision and the floor tilted violently under his feet.

Harry lay back and curled up on his side. His body was trembling, partly from the cold, but Harry suspected that he was in shock. There was no real warmth in this place, just a kind of stuffiness that made breathing difficult. When someone went into shock, Harry remembered, you were supposed to keep them warm. Oh well, he thought, lying back on the freezing stone floor, any further medical knowledge of his was limited to knocking back whichever potion Hermione and Snape told him to, so he would just have to grin and bear it.

Knowing his luck, sooner or later Harry would be brought before Voldemort for the customary round of gloating and Cruciatus curses. This was the time to plan his escape, if he intended to attempt one; he'd be in no shape to do it afterwards. Harry had to admit to himself that he probably wouldn't be in any shape to actually make the escape either, but he couldn't just give up.

Voldemort was more powerful than he was, and far more knowledgeable and experienced than he was too. But he did have a weakness, and if Harry could exploit it properly, then he might just be able to escape before he was "executed". Voldemort loved to gloat. Just take the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament. It had been Voldemort's big entrance. After the embarrassment of being brought low by a one-year-old, Voldemort had decided to kill Harry and make a point of what a powerful bastard he was. He had had Harry exactly where he wanted him: injured, wandless, tied to a headstone, completely unable to defend himself. But instead of just getting on with it and killing Harry then and there, Voldemort had made a long speech for his followers, and then had become so caught up in the moment that he had decided to give Harry back his wand and make it a "fair fight."

Snape had since told Harry that he was pleased he hadn't been there to witness Voldemort - so shrewd, calculating, quintessentially _Slytherin _-descend into such a display of idiocy; even if his absence had earned him a good measure of Voldemort's anger. Snape certainly had no love or loyalty for Voldemort, but he had always admired the Dark Lord's cunning and sheer brilliance. That same cunning had engineered a perfect situation. It was only Voldemort's grandstanding that had introduced a margin for error into an otherwise flawless plan.

Harry hadn't had a show-down with Voldemort since his fifth year, but he'd been captured once by Death Eaters and escaped. They all seemed to have taken their cue from their Master, and decided that torture wasn't proper torture unless it was accompanied by "witty" repartee and a good measure of gloating. But Harry was never laughing at them for long. Though it was true that some Death Eaters were criminally stupid, they were all cruel. They were the kind of people who would twist your arm round and round just to hear the crunch. They were the kind of people who would cut off your fingers and make you eat them because they it saved them the bother of feeding you. Bellatrix Lestrange in particular had a very nasty sadistic streak. She practiced on Death Eaters who had angered Voldemort, but she preferred Muggles. She had told Harry once that their fear and bewilderment when she cursed them made her laugh.

Harry didn't know why the Death Eaters felt the need to blast everything that moved with the Cruciatus curse. It wasn't at all practical. The few most powerful wizards in the world could use the Cruciatus frequently and for long periods without suffering from any significant magical drain. In Britain, that group was probably limited to Voldemort, Harry himself and perhaps Snape, with his affinity for the Dark Arts. Dumbledore would also have been on the list, and maybe Moody - whose sheer bloody-mindedness was a form of power in its own right - if they had lived.

However, anyone who fell short of this extraordinary power level would be able to sustain a full power Cruciatus for about a minute before the intensity began to fall, and would then need a lie down and perhaps a sandwich as well before they tried it again if they wanted to bring it back to full power. The Cruciatus was amazingly intense, requiring extreme hatred and enjoyment of the victim's suffering, but also a good deal of power to back it up. Most of the Death Eaters, although powerful, would simply never achieve that kind of magical strength, and those that had rarely did grunt work like sitting in a dank dungeon all day guarding the prisoners. After all, that was what minions were for.

The problem was that if Voldemort was waiting for him to go slowly insane, he wasn't about to drag him out for a gloating session. He might just have learnt his lesson after all.

Harry rolled from side to side, but he couldn't find a place to lie comfortably. His head was still throbbing, and he was feeling dizzy, even lying down. Eventually he gave up and lay on his back, staring up into the black void and trying to ignore the stones sticking into his legs and shoulders. He folded his hands across his stomach and twiddled his thumbs. He had the strangest urge to hum.

He twiddled his thumbs in the darkness for a while, getting more and more bored.

Well, he thought to himself, this is _nice_, isn't it?

Strains of music floated through his head. _Da de da da da dum…_ It wasn't anything he'd heard recently, _da dee da daaa da duummm…_these days the WWN barely broadcasted anything except _da dee da daa da… _rolls of honour masquerading as _de daa de da daaaaaaaa…_news bulletins.

Singing in your head, Harry thought, somewhat light-headed, is nowhere near as fun as singing out loud.

He remembered when he, Ron and Hermione had been camped out, Muggle-style, in a dingy forest God only knew where on their search for the Horcruxes. It had been raining, and there were enough insects to feed an acromantula invading their bedding. Worse still, they had run out of tea...

'_Chin up, Harry. Why don't we have a little sing-song to pass the night?' Ron had said in the unrelenting tone of someone suggesting something for the umpteenth time, having been continually turned down, but nevertheless sure that it would be accepted eventually. 'Try to forget our troubles?'_

'_Well, for one we'd be attracting attention to ourselves, Ron,' Hermione had replied, smiling indulgently, 'and two, you can't sing.'_

_It was an old argument, so old that they weren't really arguing anymore, one Ron and Hermione had been having on an hourly basis since they left Hogwarts, months ago. Ron always wanted to sing, or play a word game, to do anything to pass the time. Hermione always refused, telling him he had the attention span of a gnat and the singing voice of a dying poodle, but Ron kept at it._

'_My mum always says that a good old sing-song is just the thing for when you're feeling down. When Dad went through his rambling phase he would drag us on walks all round the country and we always used to sing to pass the time,' Ron had defended, as always._

'_A__ll of you Weasleys walking along singing the spaghetti song at the top of your lungs must have scared off the wildlife,' Harry had said with a grin, flicking a beetle off his leg …_

At the time, they had never taken Ron up on the suggestion. Harry regretted it now. That had been the week before Ron had gone back home to report in to the Order and been caught in the attack on headquarters. Hermione had been devastated, and Harry hadn't been much better.

Harry wondered if, were Ron still alive, he would have been with him when he came to this place, wherever it was. If he would have been dragged along too, like he had been on so many of Harry's 'adventures'.

If Ron were here, Harry thought sadly to himself, he'd be saying we should have a little sing-song.

But Ron was dead, as he had been for more than two years. He had been the first friend Harry had ever had. He'd been there for Harry so many times over the years. They had had their fights, but Ron had backed him to the hilt when it really mattered. He was, as Ron had taken to reminding him in a good-naturedly smug voice, the one thing Harry would miss most. Losing Ron had been like losing an arm and a leg.

In that moment, Harry would have given anything to have Ron lying there next to him in the darkness, asking if he could finally have his bloody sing-song.

And so Harry began to sing to himself, his voice weak and wobbly.

'Close every door to me,

Hide all the world from me,

Darken my daytime

And torture my night.'

He didn't care if the Death Eaters could hear him. Let them hear, the bastards, he didn't care anymore. He sang louder.

'Do what you want to me,

Hate me and laugh at me,

Bar all my windows,

And shut out the light.'

He had been fighting this war for so long. He had kept going, knowing that he was the only one who could end it. He had kept going for his friends, for Hermione and the others, because he couldn't just leave them all to die. He couldn't, not when so many people had died for him already. Whenever he had felt like giving up, Remus' words from his third year had echoed in his mind. His parents, and so many others, had died so that he would live. He would _not_ dishonour that sacrifice.

'If my life were important, I

Would ask will I live or die,

But I know the answers lie

Far from this world.'

But here, far away from the others, with nothing but pain and darkness, he couldn't summon the will to do it anymore.

'Close every door to me,

Keep those I love from me,

Children of Israel

Are never alone.'

There was no hope. There was no God of the wizarding world. There was no one to pray to, no one to help him. There was no saviour to die for him; he_was_ the saviour, who would die to save many people. There was no hope, no light, no peace.

'For I know I shall find,

My own peace of mind,

For I have been promised,

A land of my own.'

A land of pain, where anyone around you could be working for the enemy, and you would never know until it was too late. But even if they weren't, they couldn't help you or protect you because they had to think about themselves and their mates first, or they blamed you for their own suffering. A land of death, where an entire generation had been wiped out. A land of cowards, old men and small children, a land of _victims_ with no one to join the fight.

'Just give me a number,

Instead of my name,

Forget all about me,

And let me decay.'

How he wished that he could hide away from it all. That everyone would forget that he existed, so he wouldn't have to do it anymore, fight the losing battle. Skirmishes, abductions, sniper assassinations, they were fighting in the only way they could, but it wasn't even making a dent in the enemy's numbers. There were so many of them, and so few left of the Order.

They had been recruiting steadily when Dumbledore was alive, but no one would throw in their lot with two Death Eaters, a small-time bitchy journalist, a drunken dodgy dealer and two teenagers, even if one of them was _the_Harry Potter. There was nothing left. He should cut his losses and kill himself now, rather than drag it out and wait for Voldemort to do it.

'I do not matter,

I'm only one person,

Destroy me completely,

Then throw me away.'

The prophecy said that Voldemort would have to be the one to kill him, though, so he couldn't commit suicide. Deep inside, a small part of him that had once been the fearless, noble Gryffindor rebelled against the idea of doing the deed, but he wasn't that person anymore. He couldn't be Dumbledore's man through and through.

Dumbledore had always had hope, had been a beacon of hope to others. Harry couldn't do it. But he had no control of his destiny. He couldn't kill himself, events would somehow force it to go wrong, or someone would "save" him - fate would not allow it to happen. He was disgusted with his own impotence.

'Close every door to me,

Keep those I love from me,

Children of Israel

Are never alone.'

It had be Voldemort who killed him. But as much as Harry wanted to die, wanted it all to end, he wouldn't give that bastard the satisfaction. He wouldn't. His hope and noble intentions seemed to have melted away in this place of dark nothing, but he still had sheer bloody-minded stubbornness.

'For I know I shall find,

My own peace of mind,

For I have been promised,

A land of my own….'

The last verse of the song echoed around him. Harry felt hot tears pricking at his eyeballs, filling his eyes and running out of the corners, trickling around his ears as he lay staring up into the darkness.

He didn't know how long he stayed lying there. He vowed that when he got back home, he would invest in a Muggle digital watch with a lit screen. If he ever did get home.

Having put himself through an emotional wringer, Harry turned his mind to practical matters. How had he been captured anyway? He'd obviously fallen into some kind of trap, but how? That night, he'd been tracking down Malremis Avery, and he'd stunned him from behind in Knockturn Alley. He had meant to take him back to the diminished Order's headquarters for questioning. They suspected there was a big attack in the works; the signs were easy to read after such a long time of dealing with Voldemort's tactics. Hermione had been very worried.

Avery remained one of Voldemort's favourites and was in on a great number of his plans. Harry doubted Voldemort ever trusted anyone entirely, but there were some Death Eaters, mostly those who had been there the first time round, who were so devoted to him that he kept them around to stroke his ego. They had decided that Avery was quite likely to know what was going on, so Harry had tracked him down to help them with their enquiries. And then, just when he had stunned him and reached for his portkey, the ground had simply vanished from under his feet, and he'd been falling and landed here with a thump.

A sudden, horrible thought occurred to Harry, all the more horrible because it hadn't occurred to him before, when it should have been the first thing he thought of. He had been holding his wand in his hand when the ground had just fallen out from under him. Now it wasn't in his hand, and he somehow doubted it would be in his pocket. He made a quick inventory, and discovered he still had the knives he had stashed in his belt and his boots, including the long silver dagger he kept for the werewolves. His empty wand holster was still strapped to his forearm, but a quick search of the floor around him didn't yield any results. He had lost his wand. The one protection he had against Voldemort's Avada Kedavra, the only thing standing between him and a cold flash of green death was gone. There was no chance he'd be able to find it in this darkness, it may even be lying forlornly on the cobbles of Knockturn Alley…

So, he was injured, possibly in shock, definitely wandless with no hope of finding it again and a prisoner of the Death Eaters. Harry frowned. There was no doubt about his condition, but _was_ he a prisoner? Despite his first assumption of a sensory deprivation torture, he couldn't help but think that it seemed incredibly out of character for Death Eaters. No, the thought occurred to him that perhaps he wasn't a captive of anything more than cosmic injustice, and this wasn't a cell, but some kind of tunnel or underground room and nothing to do with the war. He may even be a captive of someone else entirely. He could have landed in a situation that was even worse than war-torn wizarding Britain. Trust it to happen to him. It always did.

Then, through the darkness, he heard voices. He sat straight up, and blinked to clear his vision from multicolour glitter back to black nothingness. They were coming closer, and was that- Yes, it was a light! It was only the slightest glimmer reflecting against a stone wall, but to Harry's night-vision it was as clear as daylight on a summer's morning. The light had a flickering quality that Harry recognised as torchlight- no, it was too weak and too pale for a torch. It was a candle, perhaps, and a faint one at that, being held by someone tall, very tall, or on the end of a pole. The light swayed evenly, back and forth and up and down. Not a pole, then, but a staff being used as a walking stick. No one Harry had ever met had carried a staff instead of a wand, but Merlin and many other wizards of past ages had used them.

Harry considered the evidence, as Snape had taught him to. Had he travelled back in time, perhaps? It was supposed to be impossible to go back so far, but the laws of magic always seemed to warp around him. He'd have to wait and see what this person wanted…

* * *

A.N: Song is 'Close Ev'ry Door To Me' from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, written by Tim Rice and (Lord) Andrew Lloyd Webber.


	3. The Meeting in the Mines

III: The Meeting in the Mines

After their mad scramble into the mines, chased by the many-tentacled Watcher in the water, the strange Company of four hobbits, two men, an elf, a dwarf, and a wizard ate and rested a while. Legolas Thranduilion, Prince of the Elven realm of Mirkwood, took the opportunity to take stock of the situation in which he now found himself.

The famous, or infamous, mines of Moria, where no elf had trod for so many years, stretched vast and sinister into deep shadows away from the weak light of the wizard's staff. With his keen eyes, Legolas should have been able to see far into the cavernous halls, but the darkness was thick and impenetrable, even for an elf. He looked around and shuddered slightly. Why would anyone possibly want to build a place that was so devoid of life, of light? They had only just entered the mines, but already he longed for the sun to shine on his face. The winter sun outside was weak and pale, the winter air cold and crisp, but more wholesome than the thick, smothering, stale darkness of the mines. Next to him, he saw Merry shiver slightly, but whether from a slight chill or fear, Legolas could not determine. The Dwarf sat talking quietly with Mithrandir. Of all the Company, he was the most cheerful.

It was as Legolas was contemplating this that a sound floated at the edge of his hearing. Distracted from his thoughts, he blinked in surprise.

It was very faint, a mere whisper, coming from one of the many passages leading from the landing on which the Company was resting. Legolas could only barely make it out, and no one else seemed to hear anything at all.

'_Destroy me completely,_

_Then throw me away.'_

It sounded almost like a song. Ignoring the impossibility of what he was hearing, Legolas concentrated, listening intently. A mortal, on hearing a haunting voice singing in such a place would have disbelieved his own ears, but Legolas knew better.

'_Close every door to me,_

_Keep those I love from me,_

_Children of Israel_

_Are never alone.'_

'Legolas,' Pippin said from his spot on the steps next to Merry.

'Quiet!' Legolas shushed him irritably.

'_For I know I shall find,'_

Pippin looked much put out.

'Well, that's _very_ polite, I'm sure-'

'Be quiet, Pippin,' said Merry in a half-whisper. 'How the sounds echo in here! You will bring a thousand orcs down upon our heads before we have been here five minutes.'

Legolas felt like shaking the hobbits, but as Merry stopped speaking, another snatch of song reached his ears.

'_A land of my own….'_

Silence followed, broken occasionally by the sound of the others talking quietly. Legolas strained to hear more, but the song seemed to have finished, for the sound did not come again.

Then Mithrandir called them to their feet. They had only rested a short while, but all were glad to start the journey sooner rather than later. None wished to stay in the mines any longer than they had to.

It was hard going; as they left the echoing hall they had rested in, the passages had grown smaller, and all seemed to be leading down into the root of the mountain. But it was nothing like the foul-smelling tunnels of the orcs, this had once been a great place, grand and beautiful, and though it had been abandoned, most of the structures had remained intact - apart from a few places where the floor had crumbled away, where, but for the light of the wizard's staff, the Company would certainly have fallen. A system of ventilating shafts and openings in the walls kept a circulation of cooler air in the muggy heat of the lower passages.

As he walked, Legolas thought about what he had heard back on the landing. The song had been faint, but the voice had not been that of an elf, or dwarf, despite Gimli's hopes of meeting his kinsmen. From what Legolas had learnt about hobbits, none would ever travel so far from his homeland, or visit so terrible a place as Moria, even if he did have the taste for adventure. That it was an orc was unthinkable. A man, then, though it had been perhaps a little high in pitch for a man, a child? The idea of a child in Moria horrified Legolas, but he dismissed the notion almost immediately; it had not been nearly so high as that. He collected his thoughts. A man; somewhere in Moria, there was a man, singing in the darkness.

Legolas knew he should tell Mithrandir, and yet… it had been so _very_ faint, and so far off. Legolas was intrigued, but there was no reason for the Company to be delayed in its purpose by an impossible search in the darkness for a disembodied voice. He loathed the idea of leaving a man to die in this place, but there was no way he could be sure that the man was indeed in need of their help at all.

But what would a man, or a company of men, be doing here? And why would any sane man start singing at the top of his lungs in such a place? Merry had not been wrong, there were orcs in the mines, and while the Company hoped to be able to slip quietly through without attracting attention, this strange man would be set upon if he persisted in such folly, long before they could ever find him. No, it was not a pleasant decision, but Legolas was convinced that he was right to keep silent. All that would come of his telling the others would be that the hobbits would become even more skittish.

After marching for many long, hard hours, Mithrandir called a halt by a landing with a wide arch leading off it. There were three passages, the left leading down, the middle continuing straight on and the right rising up. All headed eastwards. Mithrandir said that he did not know which passage they should take, but Legolas caught the concerned look the wizard had given the hobbits, and indeed the rest of them, and guessed he was more concerned about their stamina for walking in the cold darkness. Legolas had not been able to keep track of the hours during the march, but his body told him that it was time for rest.

The Company searched for a suitable place to spend the night, not that there was any difference between night and day in this place, but they found, to their amazement, that the guard-room off the landing was already occupied.

By the light from Mithrandir's staff, a figure was visible, slumped on the floor, wincing under the arm flung in front of his face to block the weak light from his eyes, made sensitive by the darkness.

'Well, now,' said Mithrandir, his expression partially hidden by the rim of his hat, but his surprise clearly evident in his voice. 'This is most unexpected.'

The stranger looked up at them, his squinting eyes flickering between the wizard and Pippin, who had run into the room first and now stood but a yard from the man's face, frozen in shock.

'Jesus Christ,' the stranger mumbled, his meaning quite clear, despite the unfamiliar words.

At first, Legolas wondered why the man did not stand, to greet them, or to defend himself. Surely he himself would have risen in an instant on being confronted with a party of strangers in so sinister a place as Moria, or anywhere else for that matter. But looking closer, he saw how the man swayed slightly as he crouched on the floor, how his thin hands shook and the small pool of blood on the stone where his head must have rested a moment ago.

'Who are you?'

The man asked something in a language that Legolas had never heard before, his voice shaking slightly.

'_What_ are you?'

The man tried to stand, but had barely moved before he groaned and slumped again onto the hard stone floor.

'How comes a stranger into the halls of Khazad-dûm?' asked the Dwarf suspiciously.

Legolas rolled his eyes. Were they not all of them strangers here?

Mithrandir gave Gimli a reproving look.

'Peace, Gimli. The man is clearly in some pain, this is not the time to question him.' He turned to the stranger and said by way of introduction. 'I am Gandalf the Grey, my companions and I are traveling peacefully through the mines.'

But the man just looked at him in bewilderment. Legolas wondered how bad his head wound was; but then, the man seemed fairly lucid, it was as if he knew he was being addressed, and he merely did not understand what had been said….but no, everyone spoke the Common Tongue! That was why it was called the _Common_ Tongue, it was held in common by all the Men of Middle-Earth.

'What did you say?' the stranger spoke again. 'I can't understand you. Do you speak English?'

It was then that the rest of the Company, who had been standing behind Legolas in the threshold to the guardroom, asked what could possibly be taking everyone so long.

Apologising for blocking the way, he and Mithrandir moved aside, and all nine of them stood in the guardroom.

'And who is this?' asked Boromir, his hand darting to his sword hilt, shifting the blade loose in its sheath to be drawn at the first sign of danger.

The man looked up at Boromir, not understanding the question, but definitely understanding the sword. With a small cry he jumped to his feet, knives appearing in his hands. He did not make to attack, but took a defensive stance, eyeing them warily.

'Who are you?' he asked again, louder this time, so that the strange words echoed slightly in the chamber. 'Answer me!'

Legolas had to admire his courage in thinking to fight off all nine of them, including the wizard, if not his intelligence, but no sooner had the man stood than it became clear he was in no condition to stand for much longer, let alone fight for his life. The stranger swayed, blinking hard as if trying to clear his vision. Aragorn ran forward and caught him as he fell unconscious.

'Well,' said Pippin quietly, clearly shocked. 'That was unexpected, wasn't it? That poor man, I should hate to be all alone in Moria, without any friends, or a wizard to make a light.'

'But that is just the question, isn't it, Pip? Is he alone, or are all his friends going to come and slit our throats in our sleep-'

'That will do, Master Brandybuck,' said Mithrandir, his brows furrowed deep in thought.

'Gandalf,' said Aragorn, from the corner where he had laid the stranger's limp body, and proceeded to perform a quick thief's search. 'He has nothing with him, save his knives; no food, water or means of making light. He is either a fool, mad, or-'

'Or Merry was right! He cannot possibly have been traveling alone,' said Gimli, hefting his axe as if he expected the man's companions to spring at the Company out of the shadows.

'And yet what Men would leave one of their own in the darkness of Moria?' asked Boromir in disgust. 'It is nothing short of a death sentence to leave him thus injured in such a place, without some kind of guard. You saw him, he could barely stand.'

'I have traveled in Moria alone, many years ago,' said Aragorn quietly, uneasiness creeping into his voice as he remembered his dark journey. 'I wandered for days in the darkness. But I would not say he has been journeying anywhere. His clothes are not stained with travel.'

'And he does not smell like a donkey that has been dead for several days, like you did when we first met you in Bree?' asked Pippin cheekily.

'And like we all do now, Pip,' rebuked Frodo softly.

Aragorn gave a short laugh. 'Yes,' he said, smiling, 'he is far too fresh to have been walking long.'

'Well I don't know aught about him,' said Sam tiredly, 'but I know very well that _I've_ been walking for a good while, and I could be doing with some rest.'

'Sam is quite right,' said Mithrandir, 'we are all tired. Let us make our camp here for now, and we shall set watch in pairs, in case any of our new acquaintance's companions should appear to claim him. I shall take the first watch, if you will join me, Legolas?'

The rest of the Company settled down to sleep, huddled against the walls to avoid the great well in the middle of the guard-room floor. Some spare blankets had been produced for the stranger, and Aragorn had bundled him up, saying that the cold of the stone would be of no help at all to the man's sickness, and with the help of Boromir had laid him by the wall with the rest of the Company. After the hard day of marching, it was no wonder that all fell into sleep quickly, though the small odd pieces of gravel littering the floor prevented any from sleeping too deeply.

All fell into sleep except, of course, the two watchers. Mithrandir took out his pipe and sat leaning against a wall, the faint glow of his staff illuminating his face and lending shadows to the rich darkness that surrounded them.

'Do you know the language that he spoke?' Legolas asked the wizard. 'It was like nothing I have ever heard.'

Mithrandir closed his eyes in thought, and took a long, deep suck at his pipe before answering.

'It is indeed difficult to place. The more of it I heard, the more I believed I had never come across it before.'

Legolas was slightly shocked by this admission. The Istari weren't held in quite the same awe among the Eldar as the other races - except the hobbits, he had learned, who seemed to treat the wizard as a cross between a good friend and a beloved grandfather - but the wizards maintained a certain mystery, oldest of the old, wisest of the wise. Although he knew logically that it was impossible for Mithrandir to know everything, it was another thing to be confronted with the knowledge so directly. The Eldar were reclusive, but Mithrandir traveled far and wide. He was a scholar. For it to be completely unknown, unlike _anything_…

'But that is not the matter we should be concerning ourselves with,' Mithrandir continued. 'Aside from exciting a scholarly curiosity, the language he speaks is largely unimportant. What is important is the course of action we should take, having learned of the existence of another wanderer in the mines. I have already decided the course of our journey, we shall take the right-hand passage, but we must decide what to do about our new acquaintance first.'

'Do? Why must we do anything?'

'Come now, Legolas,' said Mithrandir reproachfully. 'That he is clearly a stranger is enough to mean he needs our help. A lone stranger, wandering lost in Moria? With no guide? We must at least offer.'

'But we cannot forget our mission, Mithrandir; we cannot jeopardize the safety of the… hobbits.'

'It is unlikely that the stranger is our enemy. The arm of Sauron is long, and the hand of Saruman is close, but the mines themselves are enough of a death sentence without any special assassin to speed the thing along. No,' he said, taking another long suck at his pipe and blowing the smoke out through his nostrils. 'Our friend is here for another purpose entirely…'

* * *

A.N: For song disclaimer, see previous chapter.


	4. Decisions

IV: Decisions

Harry came to, slowly and painfully. His head still throbbed, and though he no longer felt the trickle of blood running from the cut, there was a nasty gritty feeling which told him there was dust and dirt stuck to the drying blood. His vision was blurred, and his skin was clammy with sweat. Despite all the times he had been told not to over the years, first by Madam Pomfrey, then by Hermione and later Snape as well, he reached a weak hand up to his head to feel the cut. That is to say, he tried to, but before his arm had moved more than a few centimetres from his body, it met resistance.

Raising his head, wincing and squinting, Harry saw by a faint, flickering light that he had been bundled tightly in a blanket, so tightly that there was no leeway for him to wriggle out of it. It was a sign of just how weak he was that he could be bound by a blanket, he realised foggily. He squinted around him, the ache that had settled into his shoulders from the strain of holding up his head, shooting painfully up his neck.

He was surrounded by people, perhaps five or so, who were also covered with blankets, though none looked as tied up as he was, and they all seemed to be fast asleep. Two more were sitting just inside the threshold to the small stone room. They were obviously guarding the entrance, against things coming in, rather than anyone coming out, Harry thought, judging from the way they would from time to time scan the darkness beyond the doorway, though he had no idea of what they thought they would see. One of them, the old man who had tried to talk to Harry earlier, held a staff which gave a small sphere of light, the only light source in the room. He was careful to place it so that it was shielded from the outside by the stone wall. The other was a young man was about twenty-ish by Harry's admittedly slightly hazy reckoning, with long, flowing blond hair. He was wearing a kind of greenish-grey tunic and leggings and looked to Harry more like Robin Hood than anything else, particularly with the quiver of arrows he wore on his back.

Harry felt a sharp stone sticking into his back and shifted pathetically in his cloth prison to find a more comfortable position. But instead of rolling off the stone, Harry ended up shuffling feebly into one of the sleeping men, who woke with a start. Harry swore under his breath as the man threw off his own blanket, looked carefully at Harry's face and placed his hand on Harry's forehead before turning to the old man in the doorway, who had looked up when the man had got up, and calling softly out to him in a strange language that Harry didn't understand.

'Gandalf! He has woken.'

The old man took up his staff and came over, carefully stepping over the sleeping forms of the other men. Harry wasn't sure what to make of him. He wore a long, grey robe and a fraying hat, which conspired with his long beard to make him look rather like Professor Dumbledore fallen on hard times.

'He is feverish, though truly I did not expect a night on a stone floor to do him much good. His eyes are barely focused, and he shivers still. The wound on his head needs cleaning, but whether we can spare the water...He needs rest, in a bed, and an infusion of athelas to clear his head before fever from his wound sets in.'

'Yes, but that will all have to wait. It is barely two hours into the watch, Aragorn, you should rest.'

Harry's eyes flickered from one to the other, searching their faces for any clue about what they might be saying. They were clearly discussing him. Harry had always hated it when people did that, but at the moment he was more worried about the way their voices seemed to swirl around his head, getting alternately louder and softer.

'I will go back to my post,' the old man said, and went quietly back to his spot by the threshold.

The man whom Harry had woken looked down at him with a kindly sort of smile.

'Rest. You will need your strength when we begin marching again.'

Harry didn't know why the man had bothered speaking at all. It wasn't as if Harry had any idea what he was saying, or was capable of replying. But there was something about him, something indefinable, which seemed to communicate without words. The man might have been smelly, dirty and generally wild-looking, but there was something in his face which told Harry that he was also good, wise and honorable. Harry felt himself relax against his better judgement, the tension in his head lessening and relieving some of the aching. He knew shouldn't let his guard down around a stranger merely because he_ looked_ like a nice person, particularly in his current state of helplessness. He could just imagine the choice words Snape would have had for him if he'd been there.

The stone was still there, digging into his back, but Harry decided to just grin and bear it, and didn't try moving again. Truth be told, he couldn't summon the strength. Iron-heavy eyelids slid closed, and he drifted off into a turbulent sleep.

This time is was the nice-seeming man who woke Harry. He opened his aching eyes to find the man crouching over him.

'Fuck!' he swore before he could help himself, but what he had thought would be a scream barely came out as groan.

The man frowned down at him, the language barrier not extending to the look of concern on his face. The throbbing in Harry's head seemed to have worsened while he slept, and acutely reminded him that though these people had shown no signs of aggression, and indeed seemed to be worried about him, he had no way of knowing what their motives or allegiances were, not to mention what they planned to do with him. He was completely vulnerable: wandless, out-numbered nine to one and most definitely not at his physical best. No matter how nice they seemed, they weren't his friends, and he couldn't afford to assume anything.

The man frowned slightly, as if sensing Harry's frail guardedness, then leant over him to release him from his blankets, which were as firmly in place as they had been the first time Harry had woken up. Harry raised shaking hands to his head to feel the cut, but the man gently drew them away, then grasped Harry's forearms and pulled him slowly to his feet.

It was a good thing that they were right next to the wall, as Harry's swift change from the horizontal to the vertical resulted in a wave of dizziness that, on top of his feverish migraine, had him swaying, colourful sparkles dancing in front of his eyes. Harry stumbled, his legs unable to support his weight, and fell back into the wall. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the way his body shook and felt hot and cold at the same time long enough to regain his balance. When he opened them he found the rest of the group, who had been asleep when he'd awoken before, all staring at him curiously.

There were four in particular who caught his eye. They were all less than four feet tall, with curly hair. With his head swimming, and not helped by the faint light, Harry couldn't make out much of their features, but it was clear to him that they weren't men, but children. They could barely be more than ten years old, and short for ten, too.

Harry smiled shakily at the boys, wondering what on earth they were doing hanging around with five armed guards, including a wizard and what looked like a dwarf (despite his height, he certainly wasn't a fifth child, the beard being something of a give-away). They smiled back, then quickly set about packing up their blankets.

Harry looked at his own blanket, clumsily gathered it up and rolled it as the others were doing theirs. It took slightly longer than it should have done due to the shaking in his hands, but he made a neat enough job and handed it back to the man, whose name Harry was beginning to think he really should find out. He was certain he wouldn't last long on his own, and at the very least they could point him in the vague direction of civilization, or whatever passed for civilization around here.

As the man turned away to replace something into a pack, Harry touched his arm to get his attention. He put a hand on his chest and said, 'Harry,' then pointed questioningly at the man.

He had been going for a 'Me Tarzan, you Jane' kind of thing, but obviously the man had never heard of Edgar Rice Burroughs or any of his works, and merely nodded and said 'Hah-ree' back.

Harry smiled wearily, not having the energy to try to explain what he had meant through the medium of gestures and body-language, which the man probably wouldn't understand and he was too weak to pull off anyway.

Once everyone was packed, the wizard called them all over, and there began a conversation in their strange language.

'During the watch, I have decided on our path,' Gandalf told the Company. 'What remains to be seen is what we shall do about our new acquaintance.'

'I would have thought that was clear enough,' replied Boromir, looking slightly confused. 'We will take him with us, of course. Surely we cannot leave him here?'

'Under any other circumstances, I would agree with you, Boromir,' said Legolas, 'but there are more important concerns. We have a mission, one in which we must not fail, and it would be a heavy risk indeed to introduce a stranger into the Company.'

'But we can't leave him!' piped up Pippin, distressed. 'We can't! It was I who found him, so it is my decision, and I say we take him with us.'

'Pippin,' replied Merry, 'it is not _your_ decision. And in any case, you did not find him so much as nearly trample over him.'

'Pippin and Boromir are right,' said Aragorn gravely. 'We cannot just walk away and leave him here alone in the dark, Gandalf, he is ill. That head wound of his is becoming infected, soon a fever will set in.'

'But even if he were hale and healthy, we could not leave him!' said Boromir incredulously. 'Leave a man alone in Moria, to stumble in the darkness until he finds his way into an orcish cookpot?' He sneered at Legolas. 'And I thought elves were said to be kind and good!'

'What-'

'Calm yourselves, Legolas, Boromir,' Gandalf interrupted before they could descend into a shouting match. 'There is a decision to be made, and however distasteful an idea it may be, Legolas is indeed right that taking on a tenth could put our mission in danger of failing. We must now decide if it is worth the risk.' He turned to Frodo, who had been silent throughout the discussion. 'You are the Ringbearer, Frodo, it is for you to decide.'

Frodo looked up at Gandalf, then at Legolas, and finally at Boromir. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the stranger, who had collapsed on the stone floor a short distance away, either leaving them to get on with whatever they were doing, or simply too weak to move. How could they explain to him that they were leaving him to die?

'We shall take him with us,' he said, trying to appear more confident than he felt. 'We cannot leave a man to die while it is in our power to save him. It is a risk, but we are nine and he is one; there are more than enough of us to make sure he does not…try anything.'

Frodo was acutely aware that this decision fell to him not merely because he carried the Ring, but because if the man did attempt to take it, he would certainly kill him to do so. He looked up at the wizard. 'We have no right to condemn him to death. We cannot leave him.'

Harry looked around at the strangers getting ready to break camp. They had finished their huddle, but he was still no wiser as to what they had been discussing, or what they intended to do with him. The thought occurred to him that really, the worst case scenario as far as he was concerned was that they wouldn't do _anything_ with him at all – that they'd just go on their merry way and leave him behind to die in the darkness.

But despite all the warnings that he'd been given over the years about trusting people too soon and taking things at face value too readily, Harry didn't think that they would leave him there. The rough-looking man who'd been watching him overnight had a look about him that Harry instinctively trusted. Maybe it was the kindness in his expression, or the concern he'd expressed for Harry's condition, or maybe he just looked honest. The other big guy had given him a few encouraging looks too; he seemed more ordinary but still earnest and well-intentioned. The Dumbledore-ish one had a benevolent smile that made him look every inch the universal-grandfather that the Professor himself had always seemed. The dwarf seemed friendly enough, and the boys, but Harry got the firm impression that the blonde Robin Hood didn't like him.

Maybe it wasn't dislike per se, but Harry was getting a definite feeling of… disapproval from him. Disapproval and pity. Harry didn't like being felt sorry for at the best of times, and he liked it less when he was feeling this weak. The thought that his current condition may actually work in his favour in garnering sympathy and aid from this strange group of travellers made him feel faintly revolted.

He was probably reading into his vague impressions far too much, but in the absence of verbal communication all he had to go on was what body-language and facial expressions were visible in the weak light. Snatches of Snape's oft-heard rant about his lack of observational skills and general unsubtle tendencies floated through his aching brain, making him doubt his first impressions. Not that there was anything he could do about it in this situation.

Having shouldered his pack, the kind-looking man had turned back to where Harry was slumped on the floor, leaning against the hard stone wall. He gave an encouraging grin that Harry returned weakly, and stuck out a hand to help him up. Harry grasped it gratefully, but for the second time that morning – if it was morning, it was impossible to tell– Harry found his knees unwilling to support his weight and promptly sagged back onto the wall.

The man turned back to the rest of the group and called out to them, softly, but loud enough to get their attention. The group came together in a second close huddle while Harry slid down the wall to sprawl once again on the stone floor.

'There is a problem with the stranger,' Aragorn informed the Company. 'He cannot stand. He is as he was last night, if not worse. Sleep has not aided his condition. He cannot stand, I am certain he will not be fit to walk.'

'So you see, Legolas!' cried Boromir. 'He can be of no danger to the Company: he cannot stand, he cannot walk and he cannot speak. Though if you wish to be entirely sure that betrayal is impossible, we could yet put out his eyes so that he may not mark our path and send enemies after us.'

Legolas did not respond, but looked away, clenching and un-clenching his jaw as if eating back the words he wanted to say.

'I thought we had agreed the lad is to come with us,' said Gimli, breaking the silence. 'If he cannot walk, we shall have to carry him. I see no need for further delay; we ought to have been underway by now.'

With that, Gimli went back to his pack and heaved it onto his broad shoulders. The rest of the Company gave each other uneasy looks before following the dwarf's example and separating to set their packs to rights in preparation for leaving the guardroom.

Aragorn motioned for Boromir to come over to where he stood over Harry's slumped and somewhat delirious form. The two men, being roughly the same height – Aragorn being the taller by a few inches – reached down and lifted Harry so that one arm went over each of their shoulders. They found that Harry's lean form weighed very little, for which they were glad as it would certainly make the day's march more comfortable. The man's feet trailed slightly on the stone floor, but it would have been much worse had Harry been taller, and they considered it good enough to be going on with.

And so it was that a semi-coherent Harry found himself being hauled out of the guardroom and into the vast demesnes of Moria, slung unceremoniously between the two great men of the Company.


	5. The Flight From the Mines

V: The Flight from the Mines

The Company, plus guest, marched on through the darkness. Gandalf went first carrying the weak candlelight on his staff; by his side strode Gimli, who took full advantage of walking by the light to see all he could of the ancient masonry. Behind walked the hobbits, shuffling on and taking care to keep close behind the wizard. Next came the Men, with Harry hanging between them, his head lolled forward on his chest. Legolas brought up the rear, casting wary looks into the darkness behind him, though even his keen eyes were unable to make out any shapes in the gloom.

When they reached the top of the stairs, and Gandalf increased the light, the Company became aware of the sheer size of the mines. It would be a simple matter to lose oneself forever in the vast labyrinth below, yet it would be just as easy to lose many days wandering but this one chamber. Despite now seeing the great space around them, the Company drew closer together, trying not to imagine what this chamber would look like bristling with Moria orcs and goblins.

The uneasiness they all felt in the immense hall was nothing to the sickening terror that touched each Walker in the chamber of Mazarbul, hearing the last words of the Dwarfen defenders. On entering the room, the men had left Harry slumped in a corner, completely insensible. Then, the drums came, blasting and echoing from the depths of the mine, followed by the sound of many footsteps in the great chamber.

Hurriedly fortifying the door, the Company readied their weapons. The hobbits drew their barrow-swords and held them ready in trembling hands. Legolas fit an arrow to his bow and all waited for the first orc to appear.

'How were we detected?' he hissed.

'Some accursed orc must have seen our light,' Gandalf replied. 'In the darkness of the mines, any light, no matter how faint, draws notice. It was too much to hope that we would pass without incident.'

The drums grew louder, and the rushing of feet drew closer and then, suddenly, the Company found themselves facing the first orcs to inch through the door, led by a fearsome troll. The orcs were dispatched quickly, but were replaced with more, and

in spite of the Walkers' diligence, some reached the furthest corner where Harry lay.

Harry had not had a very comfortable morning. Aside from the general soreness of his body, his head felt like it had been cracked open and his brain felt like it was dribbling out of the hole. He shook and sweated and his vision blurred, and just when it had seemed things were actually taking a turn for the better, he'd slipped into a terrifying dreamworld of clashing metal and roaring monsters.

It didn't feel like just any hallucination, either. It was so realistic he could smell the blood and sweat and fear. He kept his eyes clamped shut, focusing his strength inward in an attempt to regain control over his mind. But despite his efforts, it didn't go away.

He cracked one eye open, just in time to see what looked like a frying pan connect with a gnarled, ugly face. Seconds later, another face, similarly ugly, appeared directly in front of his, a long, wiry arm extending behind it holding a sword of black metal.

Harry's eyes popped out of his head. Time seemed to slow as he stared into the vile face with its clammy features and murderous smirk. Its putrid smell suddenly hit him like a breezeblock as his darting eyes singled out the pearly ribbon of saliva leaking from the corner of the mouth as the most offensive and disgusting element of the offensive, disgusting whole.

As suddenly as the moment had come, it was gone; leaving Harry staring at the… thing as it slowly became aware of the knife run straight through its throat. It reached up to touch the hilt, then toppled with a grisly gasp. Harry, his head the clearest it had been since his abrupt arrival hours, days ago, climbed to his feet and drew his concealed weapons.

The room was full of them, the monsters, and Harry wondered at how long it had taken one to find him. He had been laid in the back corner of the room, sheltered from view in a stone alcove. Harry was a bit put out to see that he'd been hidden behind even the children, but made up for it by fighting his way out from his hiding place and into the fray.

He quickly realised that this had been a Bad Choice. Not only was he not at his best, to put it mildly, but all he had on him by way of weapons were his knives, which while very good for stabbing at close range were completely pants in a swordfight. He ducked and weaved as well as he could, managing to get in a few hits at close quarters, but it made his head pound worse than ever. He did his best and brought down the ones he could reach even as the black blood ruined his grip, but before long he was less 'ducking and weaving' and more 'staggering and lurching'.

Fortunately, the monsters weren't particularly skilled fighters - around him Harry caught glimpses of the others killing a great many without much trouble - but there were still more of them trying to claw their way through the door, which had succumbed to the strength of what looked to Harry suspiciously like a Mountain Troll. Even the monsters seemed wary of it, dodging out of its way as it lumbered forward, knocking them over like bowling pins with each backswing of its gruesome club. Harry steered clear of it, knowing that he'd be worse than useless if he tried to take it on himself. If only he had his wand! He'd tackled a Mountain Troll – and worse – before his twelfth birthday, and here he was, leaving the biggest foe for someone else to deal with.

He couldn't do it. Even one of the kids had had a go at the thing, and got a good hit in too. Knowing that it was hopeless, reckless, downright desperate, Harry turned back to the troll. If he could get round behind it, maybe he could do what he'd done the first time: get on its back and attack where it was vulnerable.

An arrow whizzed past his ear. On second thoughts, climbing onto its shoulders and leaving himself open for every archer in the place didn't seem like a good plan. He looked around wildly for another target; in his frenzy the mass of bodies seemed blurred and distorted, and- Letting out a string of foul words, Harry clutched his arm. He'd let his guard down, and he'd been sliced for his trouble, but there was no time to worry about that now-

Suddenly, everything stopped. The monsters shrieked and fled, practically climbing over each other to get away. Adrenaline throbbed in Harry's veins, pounding the blood through his ears as silence descended. He felt light-headed, giddy with pain and nausea.

'Uh-oh,' he sing-songed, letting slip a quiet giggle.

And then the moment of calm was gone, and everyone followed the monsters' example and made a dash for the door at the other end of the room. Swaying on the spot, moments from collapse, Harry barely noticed as he was scooped up and carried off down the dark passageway, though he _did_ notice It, the Thing they were running from. It was old and dark and strong and even in his condition Harry felt it burn into his senses, filling him with fear.

They ran. They ran and ran and ran through the darkness, almost petrified with fear of the Thing behind them. They ran on even as they stumbled on the dark staircase, not knowing or caring where they were going so long as they pulled ahead.

Harry wasn't running, though he almost wished he could – he'd always been fast on his feet and he was weighing down the men carrying him. He concentrated on getting the sensation of scorching flames out of his mind and senses. It was overwhelmingly powerful, seeming to burn his mind from the inside out. Summoning all his ability at Occlumency (not much), and all his desperation and fear (very much indeed), he pushed as back as hard as he could.

The Thing seemed to falter, as if stumbling over something small and irritating at Its feet. It carried on after them just as fast, but Harry knew that he'd bought them some time. He tried it again. This time it was harder, as It seemed to realise that Harry was the one who was responsible and assaulted his mind more determinedly. Harry felt his whole body burning this time, but he screwed himself up and attacked again.

Pain erupted in his hands, and he heard himself screaming, as if from a long way off. It faltered again, taking longer to recover this time, though Harry felt It burning him even as he faded into unconsciousness.

The blessed darkness didn't last long. The terrifying chase down the pitch-black staircase was over, but Harry could still hear flames and feel the Thing burning at him. The shouts of the monsters were back, but far off and not getting closer.

Reluctantly raising his eyes to look on the scene around him, Harry saw It clearly for the first time. It was _huge_, composed of fire and darkness and radiating evil. It was standing on the edge of a vast chasm, on the opposite side to the strangers and Harry himself. Why they were still standing there instead of hotfooting it in the opposite direction became obvious when Harry dragged his gaze from It and noticed the stone bridge spanning the chasm, on which stood the Dumbledore-wizard. He was chanting something, his staff raised, looking somehow infinitesimally small and magnificently powerful at the same time. He smote the bridge - it was definitely a smiting, and with some powerful magic behind it - and the Thing fell.

Somehow, Harry knew that something was about to go horribly wrong. Getting rid of a whatever-the-hell-It-was couldn't possibly be so simple. He shrugged off the men supporting him and ran for the chasm, just as the Thing's fiery whip came up and wrapped itself around the wizard. The old man tried in vain to hold on to the bridge, and had just choked out some last words when Harry, not having the faintest clue what he was doing, or if it was even possible, thrust out his hands and screamed, 'Accio!'

It worked. For a few glorious seconds, it worked. Pain, _agony_, ripped through Harry's arms and into his hands and he felt rather than saw the energy gushing from him. The wizard stopped falling, and even rose a few tentative inches, before stopping in midair. It was a tug-of-war, with gravity and the Thing on one side, and Harry's raw, inexplicable, power on the other.

The wizard for his part wore a look of utter astonishment. It was all too clear that he had expected to die, and had chosen to make that sacrifice so that his friends could escape, but Harry couldn't just stand back and let it happen without even trying. Hermione had called it a 'saving people thing'; Harry called it common human decency.

But it was too much. It was all just too much. Harry's strength was faltering, and the wizard must have noticed he was slowly sinking again, because he called out some revised last words in that strange language that Harry couldn't understand. Their gazes locked as Harry's face worked horribly, trying to find the last vestige of power, and the wizard nodded at him, and smiled Albus Dumbledore's trademark smile – knowing, compassionate and comforting.

Rather than struggle on and drag out the death of a noble old man, Harry dropped his arms and let the spell die, before collapsing on the spot.

The Fellowship stood round the cloaked heap, eyeing it with no little apprehension.

'What is he?' asked Merry, poking the crumpled form before him with a hairy toe.

'I… I do not know,' said Aragorn, and shook his head to clear it. 'We must go. At once.' He looked to Boromir and Legolas, the former grim and silent, the latter not caring to hide his pain and dismay.

'At once,' he repeated. 'We cannot linger here to be food for the orcs! They know the labyrinth well, they will find a path across, and when they do I would fain be some miles hence.'

Still not one of them moved.

'Mithrandir bid us fly with his last breath,' Aragorn continued. He looked down at Frodo, the little hobbit returning his gaze with a sad nod. 'We make for Lothlorien. It is the path he chose.'

And with that, he bent and grasped one of the stranger's arms and hauled him up. Grim Boromir stepped forward to take the other, and together they set off down the foot of the mountain, the rest of the Fellowship following sadly behind.


	6. The Golden Wood

VI: The Golden Wood

For all that their hearts were heavy, the Fellowship traveled swiftly. After so long a separation from the light of day and the freshness of cool air, all but the elf found themselves keeping their heads down and their cloaks drawn close around them, overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the space above them. They scuttled over the open ground more than walked or ran, not paying much mind to where they were going, all but Aragorn and Boromir at the head of the column and Legolas bringing up its rear simply following the feet before them.

There was no talk. Each unhappy head was left to its own thoughts, to dull them as it could in the rhythm of the march. Yet if there had been the chatter of previous days, what would it have been composed of? Mithrandir was dead. The good, old, wise Mithrandir, their guide and counselor and dearest friend had fallen into fire and hideous shadow. Never more would he see them, or they him. In this time of darkness, with surely more yet to come, they were without him. For all the hobbits were unaware of much of the doings and happenings of the world, they knew that they were alone in a way that they had never had the courage to contemplate. They were many weeks' travel from the Shire, the good old Shire, and the one who had been their connection between there and here was gone.

And while each mind was left to think only on Mithrandir and the loss that had befallen them and all of Middle Earth, as they marched on as the day waned, teasing at the thoughts of each of the Company was the stranger. Stranger. That was a word loaded with meaning, was it not? And this stranger was a very strange stranger. A stranger who was stranger than most. Who was he? What was he? Where had he come from? What could he have been doing in Moria? And yet, none of these questions were as pressing as the one which most troubled the Fellowship as they continued on towards the wood. Who had sent him? A person didn't just turn up in the depths of Moria for no reason. One didn't go out for an afternoon stroll and suddenly find oneself dodging orcs in the darkness. The worrying thing was that whoever had sent him there had managed to time things very neatly so that the Fellowship would encounter him and take him along with them. And who could do that if not some powerful enemy?

A glooming darkness was beginning to set in when after long hours of the quick pace, the Company found themselves in a slowly thickening grove of trees, a precursor to the wood proper, the ground softening underfoot and the light dappling through foliage. That last in itself was something of a surprise to those who had not visited the wood before, namely Gimli, Boromir and the hobbits, as in the bleakness of winter the only kind of leaves they were accustomed to encounter were the spines of the evergreens. Harry remained too unconscious to be surprised by anything.

None spoke as they passed under the eaves in the failing grey light. All were weary, the hobbits the worse of all, barely able to support themselves, continually astonished that their legs kept moving one in front of the other, yet too delirious with fatigue and grief to stop them. They came to a stream, about a mile into the wood, and it was suddenly as if an unknown hand had thrown the cool water over their heads. As one the Company came back to themselves, and promptly shucked their burdens and half sat, half collapsed on the forest floor.

Aragorn spoke first.

'I am sorry, my friends. I have forgotten what we have all endured this day. I should not have kept us marching so long, and yet the heaviness in my heart bid all haste be made.'

'Do not trouble yourself,' said Legolas. 'The journey has done no harm, and how can any be sore and weary for long when they lie under the boughs of the mellyrn?'

Aragorn didn't reply for a moment, and then exclaimed, 'But Frodo!' He drew himself to where the hobbit lay spread out on the ground, his chest rising and falling deeply. 'Frodo, you were injured! Nay, you were all but skewered! And your friends not only did nothing to ease you, but carried on until night.'

Frodo smiled tiredly, and tried to say that he did not mind the march, and that he was not badly hurt at all, but was unable to find the breath to form the words. Aragorn stripped off the hobbit's jacket and tunic, and then took in a gasp of surprise which was let out as a soft laugh.

'Well, if that is not a pretty undertunic for a hobbit of the Shire, stitched by your good blacksmith! I shall cease to wonder that your kind is so long lived!'

'And yet only those with this good fortune!' cried Gimli, catching sight of the shining metal. 'For is not this mithril, and the very same that Bilbo wore those years ago? A gift the double in the giving, master hobbit, to be of such value, and such good purpose!'

Removing the mail shirt, there was a large bruise visible, which Aragorn bathed with water from the stream infused with athelas. Whether it was by the properties of the Elven water or the healing plant, Frodo felt the pain leave him, and all the Company were refreshed by the smells from the gently steaming pot.

A matter of a few feet away, the wholesome fragrance of the athelas reached Harry where he lay insensible. As he breathed the sweet fumes, his eyelids fluttered.

It was Boromir who noticed that the stranger was wakening. Having carried the slender form all the miles from Moria, and not having Aragorn's doctoring to occupy him, he had been contemplating his burden when he looked over to where the man lay and saw him rubbing his face with one hand as though trying to brush away fatigue.

Perhaps it was remiss of him, but he did not alert his fellows at once. He was inclined to think kindly of the stranger, though he could not say why that should be. When first he had set eyes on him he had seen him as a mere unfortunate soul, a fellow traveler in need of kind turn but not one to whom he had any great obligation. The suggestion that he be left to his own chance had shocked Boromir deeply, hence forth the care of this poor stranger had been a point of honour with him, one in which he would not fail to do what was befitting of a man of Gondor and of the House of the Steward. Yet he could still have done his duty by the man without any of the true concern he now felt for him. It should not have mattered that the elf clearly thought the man an enemy, except to warn Boromir himself against treachery.

But be his reasons what they may, he did not call at once to the Company to tell them of their new guest's wakefulness, but approached the man himself, quietly so as not to be threatening, though taking care not to appear as if from nowhere and startle him.

'Good e'en, friend,' he said in a kindly voice. 'You have been long away.'

The man looked back at him, his bright green eyes awake, but unfocused.

'Who are you?' he asked in that strange, unknowable tongue. 'Who are you? Where am I? Where have you taken me?'

Sensing the man's alarm, Boromir spoke soothingly, as he would have done to a startled horse or a nervous child.

'Peace, peace, friend. You would not do yourself injury?'

He smiled, and the man seemed to calm, though Boromir was unsure how far he was understood. And yet, it was not merely the lack of comprehension which troubled him; the man seemed unaware even of his surroundings, unable to sit upright, his head weaving slightly like a drunkard's. Looking carefully at his eyes, Boromir saw in the faint light that the pupils were of uneven size. He gently took the man's head in his hands, ignoring the childlike mewling that escaped the stranger as a symptom of his weakened condition, and began feeling the scalp for abrasions. As his fingers swept over the back of his head, they found a sticky clump of hair and blood.

Alarmed himself, Boromir called over his shoulder to the rest of the Company, 'Aragorn! Aragorn! Come swiftly, and bring the athelas! You must tend him!'

Aragorn immediately set down the bindings he had been strapping over the slice Sam had taken from an orc blade, and crossed the short distance to where Boromir sat by Harry's side.

'His head, Aragorn! The back of his head! All the day we carried him, so caught in our grief that we did not see what was before our eyes. We thought he was weakened from deprivation in the mines, we were content to carry him unconscious and untroublesome.' The last words he fairly spat in disgust.

Aragorn set to bathing the wound, delayed by the thickness of the man's black hair, cut short and spiking in every which way. By no understanding was it the worst of its kind he had seen, but as his fingers discovered cracks in the man's skull he winced at the truth in Boromir's words. He had kept Frodo and Sam labouring all the day behind him, yet he had carried this man through all that time and had not given him a single thought.

He washed and bathed the wound in water and athelas, and bound the man's head as he had done Sam's a moment before. Casting his eyes over the rest of his frame, he caught sight of a slash in the mysterious black coat the man wore. Gently removing the garment, he saw a nasty diagonal cut in his arm, ending just underneath the strange shortened sleeve of his shirt. It was no longer bleeding, but there was an unhealthy black tinge to the ragged edge which concerned Aragorn gravely. Filthy orcs and their poisoned blades had been known to kill the strongest men.

He bathed this in athelas also, but between the two wounds he knew it may not be enough. It was well that they were so close to aid.

'We shall delay here no longer,' he said grimly. 'We must reach the elves as swiftly as our feet will carry us thither.'

'Elves?' asked Boromir. 'I have heard tell of a sorceress who dwells within these woods, a great weaver of magic who ensnares all who dare enter.'

Legolas gave a snort of impatience. 'Mortals and their foolishness; bred of ignorance and suspicion that they will find the greed of their own hearts in all other creatures. The Lady is exceeding fair, and if she hath her own magic, it is put for better use than ensnaring idiot men.'

Gimli gave a rumble in his throat that indicated that he would fain disagree, or perhaps he meant to point out that idiot men aside, the 'Lady' could not feel kindly towards a dwarf such as he if she were elf-kind. But whatever his feeling, Aragorn silenced him with a look.

'The so-called sorceress of these woods is mother to Lord Elrond's lady wife over the sea, who is mother to Arwen Undomiel. We need fear no mischief from her.'

With the discussion ended, they crossed the stream, feeling its cool waters soothe their clad feet even as they walked. They continued on deeper into the wood, scanning the path before them in the darkness, aware of the orcs who would follow with the dying of the day.

Suddenly Gimli stopped walking at the head of the party. Boromir looked around to see what was the trouble, only to find himself facing an arrowhead aimed between his eyes notched in a bow held by a wood elf all glad in grey.

'Be still, mortal,' said the elf in slow Common Speech. 'What business have you in the Golden Wood?'


End file.
